Rotarix Rotavirus Vaccine Contaminated, Officials Say

(CNN) — Federal health authorities recommended Monday that doctors suspend using Rotarix, one of two vaccines licensed in the United States against rotavirus, saying the vaccine is contaminated with material from a pig virus.

“There is no evidence at this time that this material poses a safety risk,” Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg told reporters in a conference call.

Rotarix, made by GlaxoSmithKline, was approved by the FDA in 2008. The contaminant material is DNA from porcine circovirus 1, a virus from pigs that is not known to cause disease in humans or animals, Hamburg said…

FDA Suspends Use Of Major Glaxo Vaccine

Doses of Rotarix – Used to Combat Diarrhea-Causing rotavirus – Contaminated with Pig Virus, but Apparently Harmless

(AP) U.S. health officials told pediatricians Monday to temporarily quit using one of two vaccines against a leading cause of diarrhea in babies, after discovering that doses of GlaxoSmithKline’s Rotarix were contaminated with bits of an apparently benign pig virus.

Glaxo’s vaccine has been used in millions of children worldwide, including 1 million in the U.S., with no signs of safety problems – and the pig virus isn’t known to cause any kind of illness in people or animals, said Dr. Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.

But vaccines are supposed to be sterile, and because there is a competing vaccine against diarrhea-causing rotavirus that has tested clean – Merck’s RotaTeq – the FDA decided to err on the side of caution…

Mexico’s Drug Wars Fuel Northern Flight

(CBS) Luis Aril Anzures is 29, and a successful restaurateur in El Paso, Texas.

But 11 months ago he lived across the border in Juarez, Mexico – one of the most dangerous cities on earth, reports CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker. One day driving home, three cars surrounded him.

“People came out of the cars with AK-47s, pointing at me, told me to get out of the car, made me kneel on the street,” Anzures said. “I thought I was going to die.”

At just that moment soldiers drove up and saved him. That night, Luis and his family fled to El Paso, one of the safest cities in the U.S. – just 13 murders last year. They now have a thriving new restaurant and a safe new life.

“We love it here,” Anzures said.

He’s part of a growing number of people fleeing north to safety across the Rio Grande.

The port is one of the busiest on the border, 23 million crossings back and forth a year. But in the last two years, as many as 80,000 people from Juarez have crossed into El Paso — and not gone back…

An Open Letter To Census Workers

To Whom it May Concern,

Pursuant to Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution, the only information you are empowered to request is the total number of occupants at this address. My “name, sex, age, date of birth, race, ethnicity, telephone number, relationship and housing tenure” have absolutely nothing to do with apportioning direct taxes or determining the number of representatives in the House of Representatives. Therefore, neither Congress nor the Census Bureau have the constitutional authority to make that information request a component of the enumeration outlined in Article I, Section 2, Clause 3. In addition, I cannot be subject to a fine for basing my conduct on the Constitution because that document trumps laws passed by Congress.

Interstate Commerce Commission v. Brimson, 154 U.S. 447, 479 (May 26, 1894)

“Neither branch of the legislative department [House of Representatives or Senate], still less any merely administrative body [such as the Census Bureau], established by congress, possesses, or can be invested with, a general power of making inquiry into the private affairs of the citizen. Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U.S. 168, 190. We said in Boyd v. U.S., 116 U. S. 616, 630, 6 Sup. Ct. 524,―and it cannot be too often repeated,―that the principles that embody the essence of constitutional liberty and security forbid all invasions on the part of government and it’s employees of the sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of his life. As said by Mr. Justice Field in Re Pacific Ry. Commission, 32 Fed. 241, 250, ‘of all the rights of the citizen, few are of greater importance or more essential to his peace and happiness than the right of personal security, and that involves, not merely protection of his person from assault, but exemption of his private affairs, books, and papers from inspection and scrutiny of others. Without the enjoyment of this right, all others would lose half their value.’”

Note: This United States Supreme Court case has never been overturned.

Respectfully,

A Citizen of the United States of America

Mother Furious After In-School Clinic Sets Up Teen’s Abortion

SEATTLE — The mother of a Ballard High School student is fuming after the health center on campus helped facilitate her daughter’s abortion during school hours.

The mother, whom KOMO News has chosen to identify only as “Jill,” says the clinic kept the information “confidential.”

When she signed a consent form, Jill figured it meant her 15 year old could go to the Ballard Teen Health Center located inside the high school for an earache, a sports physical, even birth control, but not for help terminating a pregnancy.

“She took a pregnancy test at school at the teen health center,” she said. “Nowhere in this paperwork does it mention abortion or facilitating abortion.”

Jill says her daughter, a pro-life advocate, was given a pass, put in a taxi and sent off to have an abortion during school hours all without her family knowing.

“We had no idea this was being facilitated on campus,” said Jill. “They just told her that if she concealed it from her family, that it would be free of charge and no financial responsibility.”

The Seattle School District says it doesn’t run the health clinics at high schools. Swedish Medical Center runs the clinic at Ballard High and protects the students’ privacy.

T.J. Cosgrove of the King County Health Department, which administers the school-based programs for the health department, says it’s always best if parents are involved in their children’s health care, but don’t always have a say.

“At any age in the state of Washington, an individual can consent to a termination of pregnancy,” he said.

But Jill says she not only didn’t have a say in her daughter’s abortion, but also didn’t know about it.

“Makes me feel like my rights were completely stripped away.”

D.C. In The Weed(s)

City leaders try to answer questions about legalizing medical marijuana

Medical marijuana users in the District may not have to go to a clinic or a doctor’s office to get their dose; they may be able to go into their backyard.

D.C. Council is thinking of adding a provision to the new medical marijuana bill that would allow some users to grow plants for their own use. They’d likely be limited to two plants per home…

Mexican Officers Dismembered, Put In Bags

MEXICO CITY – The pre-dawn discovery of two bodies cut into pieces and shoved into two black bags brought a tragic end Monday to a search for two missing police officers in the southern state of Guerrero. Law enforcement officials say the bagged body parts were found at 3:15 a.m. (5:15 a.m. EDT; 0915 GMT) outside police headquarters in Guerrero’s capital city, Chilpancingo.

One of the victims was a regional commander, the other a state police officer. Notes written on yellow cards were attached to the bags, but police refused to disclose what they said. Drug cartel killers frequently attach messages to bodies.

In the nearby resort of Acapulco, police later found another two mutilated bodies and a threatening message outside the house of the city’s former deputy traffic police chief…

Health Care Law Signals US Empire Decline?

The passage of the health care law shows that the US empire is declining because it illustrates the fact that people expect the state to take care of them, David Murrin, the co-founder of Emergent Asset Management hedge fund manager, told CNBC.

Lilli Day | Photodisc | Getty Images

On Tuesday, US President Barack Obama signed into law health care legislation that expands health coverage for the poor, imposes new taxes on the rich and forbids insurance practices such as refusing coverage to those with pre-existing conditions.

In their expansionary phase, empires force people to go out, seek risks and fend for themselves, Murrin said, reminding of the dismantling of the British empire after the war, when the National Health Service, which ensures universal health coverage in Britain, was created…

Slaughter Vandalism Is Fourth Case Nationwide

Falls office of Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, D-Fairport, was one of at least four cases of vandalism targeting Democratic offices across the country late last week during the debate over health care reform.

A window was also broken at the Monroe County Democratic headquarters in Rochester.

In Tuscon, Ariz., a window at the office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords also was broken.

And at Democratic headquarters in Sedgewick County, Kan., a brick with anti-Obama and anti-health care messages was thrown.

At Slaughter’s office on Pine Avenue, a piece of brick and a broken window were discovered at about 12:30 a. m. Friday. The brick shattered the outermost window but not an interior window. Damage was estimated at $350…

U.S. Said To Be Eying Cybersecurity Ambassador Role

Goal is to have U.N. representative for cybersecurity policies, says Wall Street Journal

Computerworld – The U.S. is weighing the creation of an ambassador-level position for negotiating cybersecurity matters at the United Nations and for ensuring the country has a consistent international policy on the issue, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Both the U.S. State Department and Congress are considering the creation of such a role following the recent attacks on Google and numerous other high-tech companies, the Journal said, citing several unnamed sources. The proposals include a plan to develop policies tying foreign aid to a country’s willingness and ability to fight cybercrime originating from within its borders…